Console Wars: The Clone Wars

[Asher]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Asher loves the Wii so much he bought two.

I bought one and my SO was given one for Christmas when he was working out in Calgary on term...so when he moved back he brought it with him. Thus, two.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher
, I don't think any reasonable person would question the assertion that people are playing the 360 a lot more.

If you go by time spent playing , the PC is still the dominant platform according to a recent NPD survey, right?

[Asher]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


If you go by time spent playing , the PC is still the dominant platform according to a recent NPD survey, right?

No -- go away.

You're opening a whole nother can of worms called World of Warcraft that is argued to death, completely boring, and off topic.

[Asher]

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37376/135/

65 nm GPUs for Xbox 360 now in production, Xbox ‘540’ coming in 2009

Taipei (Taiwan) – News about refreshed Xbox 360 consoles are trickling, which is about time given the fact that the console will celebrate its third birthday later this year. The Taiwan Economic News is reporting that first wafers with 65 nm GPUs are leaving the production lines, joining the 65 nm Xenon CPU. Rumors about a Blu-ray Xbox 360 remain alive and we are hearing first information about a possible mid-cycle refresh for the console, which will include the ‘Valhalla’ SoC.

It has been almost a year since Chartered has begun taking the Xbox 360 Xenon CPU from 90 nm to 65 nm and it really was just a matter of time until other hardware would follow. According to the Taiwan Economic News, TSMC has initiated first wafer starts of the 65 nm Xenos GPU and Northbridge. Microsoft apparently has ordered 10,000 300 mm wafers from TSMC at this time.

As it is the case with any die-shrink, Microsoft should see substantial economic advantages from this move, supporting the company’s ongoing strategy to reduce the production cost of the console (the reduction of the Xbox 360 production cost has been one of the key reasons why Microsoft’s entertainment division has been able to notably increase its profits over the past seven quarters). If the 65 nm Xenos "v2" scales down linearly from 90 nm, the new die size should be around 125 mm2, while the eDRAM chip will remain at 70 mm2. The new production process should yield about 35% more GPUs per wafer than before.

TSMC will continue to be in charge of the wafers, while Nanya will be delivering the flip-chip packaging substrates. ASE combines the silicon and substrate and is responsible for QA.

Quite honestly, we were a bit surprised to hear that Microsoft did not decide to die-shrink both the CPU and GPU at the same time, especially because two different foundries are manufacturing the chips. However, our sources at TSMC explained that Microsoft has the same production philosophy as Nvidia: Wait for a manufacturing process to mature and then run the initial wafer order. Apparently, the transition was simulated in detail by ATI and the tapeout happened without problems, at least according to our sources close to ATI. Keep in mind that ATI is only a contracted partner for Microsoft: Both the CPU and GPU are officially Microsoft parts, and the Ballmer-Gates company is the only one in the console segment following through with such a strategy.

The Xbox 360 is scheduled to ship in an "all 65 nm" package (Jasper platform) this August. Consumers won’t notice the refresh, unless Microsoft decides to put a Blu-ray drive into the Xbox 360. We were not able to receive a confirmation either way, and we keep digging to find out if the Asustek subsidiary Pegatron will manufacture regular Xbox 360’s or units with an integrated Blu-ray drive. In any case, Celestica, Pegatron and Wistron will have a busy summer cranking out millions of refreshed Xbox 360 consoles.

A more dramatic and perhaps visible change will happen next year: TSMC plans to begin producing the Valhalla chip, which will be the foundation of the mid-cycle refresh of the Xbox 360, thus called ‘Xbox 2.5’ or simply ‘Xbox 540’ (360+180), in fall of 2009. We learned that this new chip is apparently much more than a die-shrink and end up as a system-on-a-chip design. This change is likely to enable to redesign the Xbox 360 casing and go towards a slim-design, much like what Sony did with the Gen1 and Gen2 PS2. We believe that TSMC will use a 45 nm process for this Multi-Chip-Module package (CPU+GPU+eDRAM).

There are also some interesting pieces of information that Microsoft is shopping for a more efficient cooling solution – efficient in more ways than just one: Several people close to the cooling industry told us that Microsoft approached them and asked for better and cheaper cooling than what is used in the Xbox 360 right now. Some may claim that the current Xbox 360 cooler design is already as cheap as it gets, but we have no doubts that Microsoft will find a way to drop the cost once again.

[Krill]

Are the next gen consoles in developement yet?

[Asher]

Presumably.

[Krill]

But nothng has been released?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher

No -- go away.

You're opening a whole nother can of worms called World of Warcraft that is argued to death, completely boring, and off topic.

whether time spent playing is a useful metric of "winning" the console war would seem to be on topic.


do we determine which car dominates a market by which one is driven more? No, only by hardware sold. To come back to something more comparable, do we determine the winner of a video format war by which is watched more hours? No, by HW and SW sales.

The logical way to determine how the Wii is doing is by its HW and SW sales. The HW sales are globally dominant. The SW sales are better than expected, and not nearly so poor as sometimes implied.

[lord of the mark]

interesting site TGdaily -

has this been discussed?

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37371/98/

[Asher]

No, because it's not really worthy of it. Grand Theft Auto was historically a PlayStation title, and as such a huge portion of its userbase are Playstation loyalists.

I think everyone expected the PS3 tie ratio for GTA4 to be higher, but for the 360 to still outsell it.

Not to mention, that article is a bit biased -- they're talking about a 60/40 split like it's a huge surprise when it shouldn't be. The typical split, if both 360 and PS3 users bought GTA4 at identical rates -- would be 70/30. So even that's not too far off.

At the end he mentions the 360 has downloadable content coming, but then negates that by saying "rumours have the PS3 getting content as well". That's just irresponsible journalism, there are rumours for everything. MS paid $50M to Rockstar to get 10-15 hours of exclusive missions as DLC, this contract precludes Sony from getting the same thing. Maybe Sony will get "DLC" later in the form of extra cars or something else, but not on the same scale as MS has purchased from Rockstar.

[Asher]

Gamestop is reporting 64/36 split in sales for the 360.

-------------

Rumoured spring update for 360 dashboard:

Xbox LIVE
1. Option to delay sign-in to Xbox LIVE upon booting console (to allow user to set Online Status).
2. Option to promote Child Account from Family Settings.
3. Disallow Child Accounts (over 18) to override Family Settings by launching Privacy Settings through a title.
4. Option in Family Settings for Child Accounts to enable child-oriented/non-mature advertisements.
5. Introduce a group chat (4) for Private Chat and conferences through Video Chat.
6. Support to indicate media being watched to gamercard status (video content from Marketplace only).
7. Extend height for Bio field in Personal Profile, easier navigation through text.
8. More fields present in Personal Profile - recent achievements, interests, games, movies, links, custom section.
9. Compact Personal Profile for new fields (navigating to field will open it up).
10. Mandatory option to delete duplicate titles from gamercard (excludes Games for Windows - LIVE). User disconnected from Xbox LIVE when booting any title until action complete.
11. Option to remove payment information from gamertag.
12. New payment methods for international users.
13. Download History on Account Management better organized - games, genre, type, download date, miscellaneous.
14. Long descriptions of items on Marketplace can be scrolled using right stick.
15. Better organization of free content on Marketplace.
16. Option to 'ping' when testing connection.
17. Allow re-connection to Xbox LIVE if Ethernet cable is re-inserted whilst powered on.
18. New strip colors available to developers, staff gamercards.
19. New corner icon available to ambassadors.
20. Re-introduce Messages button for Inside Xbox updates only.
21. Option to store up to 10 messages permanently on server (excludes invites, status messages).
22. Increase character limit for text messages between friends only.
23. Option to disable invites from non-friends or all players.
24. Option to disable invites from titles not on gamercard (excludes demos).
25. Option to have smaller items moved up in Active Downloads.
26. Automatically re-connect to Xbox LIVE if disconnected unexpectedly (set intervals).
27. Option to download gamer picture (if available) from a gamercard being viewed.
28. Display random tips to replace static text on Xbox LIVE and Games blades.
29. New button on Marketplace for optional dashboard features - uses Storage Device memory.
30. Option to donate Microsoft Points to anybody with a Windows Live ID.
31. Option to purchase Membership for charities (includes benefits).
32. Integrate file-sharing for selected titles on Xbox LIVE and Games for Windows - LIVE.
33. Disable notifications to friends of user repeatedly signing into service (set period).
34. Option to see 'snippet' of text message in notification.
35. Windows Live Mail integration - includes support for Xbox LIVE Vision.
36. Web feeds integration - text, images, audio. Includes support for specific item codes on Marketplace.
37. Option to display gamer picture or standard picture as display picture in Windows Live Messenger.
38. Support for headset, Xbox LIVE Vision in Windows Live Messenger.
39. Support for limited 'winks' that display on dashboard interface. Option to disable 'winks' and 'nudges' added.
40. Notifications separate from Windows Live Messenger to Xbox 360 notifications.
41. Disable multiple languages from being used in any Xbox LIVE editable fields.

Games
1. Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements (excludes some titles that will be re-added to launch another title).
2. Organize My Games at the Games Library section better (includes disc-based titles) - sort by genre, platform (Games for Windows - LIVE), percentage completion.
3. Support to display friends leaderboards for disc-based titles.
4. Show dates of an achievement unlocked when comparing.
5. Preload Games Library upon dashboard bootup for faster access.
6. Game updates now shown as items in Memory, increased amount of updates on Storage Device.
7. Option to delete game updates, removed 'cheat code' as no longer needed.
8. Support for more titles to display banner when accessing guide in-game.
9. Option to re-introduce awarded gamer pictures from titles that do not have their own re-introduce feature (requires saved game).
10. Disable gamer pictures from being awarded from trials.
11. Support for titles to store installation data on Storage Device for faster loading.
12. Synchronization to achievements offline/online that were deleted and then re-added from developers.

Media
1. Option to hold LT and RT for rewinding/fast-forwarding video content.
2. Option to delete individual music tracks from storage device.
3. Option to rip music CD at different quality.
4. Copy non-protected files (pictures, music, videos) from USB storage devices, CDs and computers to proprietary storage devices.
5. Support for menu, top-menu features on video content downloaded from Marketplace.
6. Section added for audio delivered through feeds (podcasts). Option to stream, download to Storage Device.
7. Support added for video titles/description to gamercard status.

Dashboard/Miscellaneous
1. Option to navigate quickly out of several menus back to respective blade home (applies to Games, Media, System).
2. New blade trim styles added.
3. Introduce expanded Inside Xbox as a portal to news, weather, entertainment, help and community features.
4. New sounds for various functions (notifications, blades, navigation).
5. Calibration options for display/sound.
6. Calibration options for motion sensor devices.
7. New effects for Xbox LIVE Vision and dashboard background.
8. Disable changing of Theme when on Memory to prevent 'hanging'.
9. Preload recent, limited items upon dashboard bootup on Memory.
10. Faster loading of Themes section on guide.
11. Option to see what items will not work offline due to DRM license changing from Memory.
12. Option to automatically associate new DRM to items downloaded for free.
13. Indicate 'charging' status on guide when Play & Charge kit is connected.
14. Option to change text colors on guide to better contrast some backgrounds.
16. Language improvements.
18. Word censor updated for fields.
19. Privacy Settings/Family Settings updated for new features.
20. Voice, picture messages can be read at Xbox.com (Gold accounts).

[Verto]

I want .mkv support, damnit!

[Asher]

There's some interesting stuff in there.

"Calibration for motion sensing devices"
File sharing in Xbox Live games (probably in preparation for...get this FROSTY...USER MODS for games like UT3).
Game installations for faster loading

[DrSpike]

Those are the three that caught my eye too. The confirmation that the Xbox is going to try and capitalise on the success of the 'gimmicky' Wii controller is particularly interesting.

[Asher]

So long as it rightfully remains a gimmicky controller rather than the dominant controller, it's all good.